Collective Dream Monster

Some dreams are so impersonal and so well-structured, they are obviously parables. They are meant to teach.

I dreamt a man was traveling at night on horseback with a boy that he was delivering to an orphanage. Based on his clothes, he seemed to be a high-ranking official of some sort — he was at least smartly dressed. He came to a iron grating door that barred a tunnel entrance. Inside was some hideous monster that I could not see because I had its perspective. It was some kind of magical, irreal monster that had to do with the themes and tides of reality. It agreed to let the man take the child to an orphanage, as though it could assure an uneventful journey. However, it also spontaneously promised that the child would be ill-treated at the orphanage. The man had to reckon with the true nature of his mission.

The monster spoke in Middle English, which I at first could not understand, but then I could see a parchment lying on the ground with the monster’s monologue written out. Because modern English spelling has much to do with Middle English pronunciation, this was enough for me to understand a few words here and there. The monster described the situation several times with different wording, so I was ultimately able to get the gist of what it was saying. Upon waking, I realised that this repetition only makes sense if I were the intended recipient of the message, not the man. He would have presumably understood the first time.

After delivering the monologue, the monster turned away and retreated back into the mountain. I could feel it walking on four legs and dragging a large tail, as though my awareness had seeped into its body. The inward tunnel opened to a vertical shaft. About five meters above stood two dozen villagers in some sort of gallery, illuminated by torchlight. They were watching silently, apparently to see what the monster would do next, out of morbid curiosity.

I began to feel the dread that the monster felt, and that is when I realised that I had become the monster. I felt dread of what the villagers were making me.They were in an awful part of history because they were awful. Religion alone kept them from tearing each other apart, and that was only somewhat effective. They pretended to be victims of their age, but were unconsciously orchestrating events through this collective dream monster. It was some sort of manifestation of their will and interests. I realised that the monster had only a monologue to read out because it had no agency of its own.

And I had been recruited like everyone else, by paying attention. I could have attended to anything, and I attended to that.

I forced myself awake, only to discover that I had been suffocating all the while due to hay fever. I gasped heavily for fresh air.